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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24159514">Like Father Like Daughter</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/VJR22_6/pseuds/VJR22_6'>VJR22_6</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, child abuse mention, i wrote this for a lovely lovely friend of mine but post-editing i feel satisfied enough to share, idk if i really need to mark those but i want the warning anyhow, running away mention</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:34:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24159514</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/VJR22_6/pseuds/VJR22_6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Drake and Gosalyn both had... less than pleasant pasts. Launchpad finally convinces Drake that he should take his daughter and go to therapy (he is her hero, after all, he should set a good example). It ending in tearful, loving embraces is just part of healing, really.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Drake Mallard &amp; Gosalyn Mallard, Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>142</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Like Father Like Daughter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>HIYA!!!! I’m back!!!<br/>It has been... a wild time. Current events and personal stuff besides, but yknow what? Life is just Like That sometimes. It’s gonna be okay.<br/>Anyway, here’s my writing-as-a-coping-mechanism piece, please enjoy.</p><p>Written as a gift for a dear friend who came up with the idea in the first place.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Therapy? Look, LP, we talked about this before. I’d rather lick every shoe in the house.”</p><p>Drake is very pointedly not looking at Launchpad while he talks, hands busy folding laundry. LP, however, has never been one to pick up on cues. He grabs one of Gosalyn’s jerseys from the basket and continues.</p><p>“I know you don’t wanna do it,” Launchpad begins folding the jersey. “But I talked to Gos, and she does.”</p><p>“What?! LP, why would you do that? She’s <i>ten</i>, what could she possibly--“</p><p>“She’s been orphaned twice.”</p><p>Drake opens his mouth to speak, but Launchpad continues, not even looking up from neatly folding.</p><p>“Kidnapped.”</p><p>He grabs a T-shirt from the basket.</p><p>“We’re her third set of guardians and we live a very <i>dangerous</i> life.”</p><p>Drake sighs, setting aside a folded sweater and reaching into the basket for another. His husband is right, as usual. Poor Gosalyn has been through so much, she’s going to need help he can’t provide her.</p><p>“I just think it would be encouraging for her if you went, too. You’re her hero.”</p><p>Well, LP certainly knows just how to phrase things. Drake loves Gos more than anything, would bring her the world if she asked for it. She needs this, and he does too, he’ll (finally) reluctantly admit. Years of living entirely alone and the things that led to that have… not exactly helped him as a person. Opening up is the last thing he wants to do. But he’s got to do what’s right for Gosalyn, if not himself.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p>He picks a practice that will take them both, sets their appointments up just so. He knows it’ll be an emotional rollercoaster to do this, even on the first day, and he doesn’t want his girl alone for even a minute in that state. He wants to protect her so much, but Launchpad convinces him that sometimes, they need to let go a little to help her best.</p><p>Their first appointment is on a rainy day. It’s cold, a bit windy. Gos is wearing those purple rain boots she loves so much, ones meant to keep her little feet dry when she goes splashing through puddles. She gazes longingly at the accumulating water in the parking lot, but Drake offers her his hand and she stays beside him.</p><p>The building is smooth stone, with neat landscaping out front. Other than walking into the adoption agency, Drake thinks this is the most scared he’s ever been. But he can’t let on to Gos--she’s so much like him, she’ll pick up on it. And if her dad is reluctant, well, maybe there’s a reason for Gosalyn not to like this, too.</p><p>So he holds himself steady, ever the actor.</p><p>There’s no way this will work on Darkwing Duck, he’s positive of that much. He’s just baring his soul to a stranger, and all for nothing. How can anyone help him, the physical manifestation of the night? He’s just broken, that’s all, just a mess with a husband and daughter who--who need him to try this. Okay. He will go into this office for Gos and LP, but nothing will come of it, and then he’ll take his girl home and tell LP, “I told you so.”</p><p>His appointment starts first, so he will have to leave Gos sitting in the waiting room for ten minutes before hers starts. She curls up in one of the chairs and flips through a sports magazine. He reassures her (he always does when he has to leave her in a public place) that he’ll be here to pick her up when she’s done.</p><p>“I’ll be fine, Dad!” She rolls her eyes, and doesn’t look up. (She always responds like that.)</p><p>“I know, honey, I know.” (He always worries anyway.)</p><p>He leaves her in the big waiting room, tall ceilings haunting him. It feels like a villain’s lair, sort of, and he worries about every crook he’s faced bursting through that window above Gos’s head and snatching her up.</p><p>He worries about that a lot, though, and like LP often says, “Nothing’s happened yet, why would anything happen now?”</p><p>Drake’s therapist is tall, a big-nosed dog with a gentle, rolling voice. Like verbal thunder, booming but not threatening. This guy is also twice Drake’s size and probably gives bear hugs like Launchpad does. He offers a hand to shake and Drake takes it, looking up at this guy with all the skepticism in the world. How can one man promise to help the years of problems Drake’s faced?</p><p>Drake pulls on the sleeves of his sweater until they cover his hands. He’s breathing deeply, steadying himself, as the therapist gestures to a leather couch matching the chairs in the waiting room. Reddish-brown in color, and as he takes a seat, he notes how cold it is. He wiggles his tail and settles in.</p><p>“So, Mr. Mallard, tell me a little about yourself.”</p><p>Here they go.</p><p>The first session is really more of a getting-to-know-you thing, but the therapist asks uncomfortable questions anyway. He says no less than a half-dozen times that Drake can keep anything he wants private, that if he’s uneasy he doesn’t have to share. But even the fact that he’s got a husband is hard for Drake to share. Many people don’t take kindly to that news--he thinks about when Gos told Honker about the fact her dads had finally gotten engaged, and how Binkie called him up on the phone not two hours later.</p><p>With that revelation, they start the hard work of therapy.</p><p>He wants to know, how long has Drake known he’s gay--or bi, he corrects himself as soon as Drake says so--and oh, since he was Gos’s age? And he’s trans, too, while they’re at it, well, good to know. Did his parents know he was, then, since he was so young? No? Well, that’s alright. How did they take to him telling them, then? Badly? He’s sorry to hear.</p><p>Vaguely, he hopes his little girl is doing better in the office down the hall. She’s more trusting than him, she’s probably told her therapist everything from her favorite sport (hockey) to her favorite holiday (her adoption day, they always celebrate it). Drake’s just offering up whatever details he thinks this guy wants to hear and refusing to make eye contact.</p><p>“I’m going to assume you don’t have a good relationship with your parents, then?”</p><p>“Uh, no,” Drake replies, thinking about that April night when he saw them last. “We don’t talk anymore.”</p><p>“That’s often the case with my patients with non-heterosexual or cisgender identities. It’s perfectly alright to have an unconventional sense of family in your life.”</p><p>He thinks about Morgana, how Gos calls his ex her aunt. He thinks about LP, and how even though Drake’s less than comfy with it they spend Hanukkah with his family. Thinks about how he calls Honker his kid sometimes, when Herb or Binkie is treating him badly.</p><p>“Sure.”</p><p>“How do they feel about your daughter? I can tell she means a considerable amount to you.”</p><p>Drake is quiet for a long minute. After running away from home he hasn’t so much as spoken to them, but not for lack of trying. They just… never answered his letters or calls. Didn’t even say a word when he sent that wedding invitation along. Not that he thought they would, he just… kind of hoped they’d try.</p><p>But, hell, this is what therapy’s for, right? So he tells the therapist, with his clipboard and kind eyes, about how his blood family gave up on him.</p><p>The session ends twenty minutes later, and Drake’s all but biting his beak to keep from crying. He walks back out to the waiting room and curls up in the waiting room to wait for his little girl. He kind of composes himself by the time her appointment ends, but hey, nobody’s gonna be fully fine after someone’s just said, “I’m sorry your parents abandoned you. Your daughter’s lucky to have someone who will do so much better for her.”</p><p>Gos is clutching a Kleenex when she pokes her head out of the office. Her eyes are puffy, cheeks still wet. Poor girl! He’s at her side quick, and she holds out her arms. He scoops her up like one would a toddler, and she clings to him like it too. He nods to her therapist, a kindly old bird woman, who offers him a travel pack of Kleenex and a “see you in two weeks.”</p><p>He carries Gos out to the car, and almost puts her down in the passenger seat til she whispers, “I miss Grandpa, Dad.”</p><p>“I know you do.”</p><p>He climbs in the seat instead, still holding her. He can see puddles in the rearview, but Gos won’t be jumping in them now. Instead she curls up against his chest, staring vacantly to the side. He strokes her red hair back, humming her lullaby to calm her.</p><p>She sniffles, resting her head over his heart. He looks down at her, longing to ask what happened in that office, even though he knows, really, that he shouldn’t. He doesn’t, in the end, just looks out the windshield to the beautiful view the office has.</p><p>They’re up on a hillside, offices and houses above them and the rest of St. Canard below. He follows streets with his eyes, toward home where LP awaits them. The bridge tower is opposite them, the city sparkling and the lives of so many going on all around them. It’s his city to protect, beautiful and big and full of so many good things despite the bad. But right now? None of that matters. Darkwing doesn’t matter.</p><p>All that does is here in his arms, crying for what she’s lost.</p><p>Drake lets a single tear trickle down his cheek, breath shaky. “I love you, Gosalyn.”</p><p>“Love you too,” she hiccups. She rubs her eyes with a tissue, and he rocks her a little bit. He lets himself cry--if his spirited girl is so emotional, he figures she’s not gonna mind if he is too. He thinks a lot, in that moment, about what he talked about. He figures she is too.</p><p>He left his parents behind by hopping out a window, leaving behind everything but what fit in his backpack. Hers left her instead, and she lost her grandfather soon after, taking only a backpack of her own to that orphanage. Neither of them had a person in the world who wanted them, until they found each other and Launchpad. And yet they stayed full of spirit.</p><p>Drake thinks that maybe being alone took a toll on him bigger than he’s willing to admit.</p><p>He cries for a few minutes more, then decides to drive them home weeping. It’s not a good decision, for sure, but it’s cold and wet out. Better to be sobbing under a blanket at home than in a rainy parking lot. He’s puffy-eyed and worn-out when he gets to their driveway, and Gosalyn is too, but they’re home at least.</p><p>He carries her inside. She protests quietly that she <i>can</i> walk, but he plucks her off the seat anyway and she wraps her arms around him again. LP is in the living room, flipping through TV channels, but he stops when he hears the door open.</p><p>“I was gonna ask how it went but I think I can tell,” he laughs a little, and gets up. He takes Gos from Drake, offering a one-armed hug. Gos snuggles against his chest, and he holds her easily with his other arm. It’s warm there, together, and Drake can almost forget the windy, sad rain outside.</p><p>“You know what you two need? Ice cream.”</p><p>Gos giggles wetly. “It’s like thirty degrees out there, Launchdad!”</p><p>“Ice cream!” He says again, determined. Drake rolls his eyes, and makes for the closet with the blankets in it. “Fine, but don’t complain when we don’t eat your dinner.”</p><p>“Ice cream for dinner,” Gos says with a little smile. Hey, at least she’s feeling better! Launchpad carries her off into the kitchen to get some and Drake tosses a couple of blankets on the couch. Later, bundled up warmly with a bowl of rocky road and the two of them beside him, Drake will decide that therapy isn’t too terrible, if it means he can be better for his family.</p><p>At their next appointment, Launchpad drives. He says, “You can’t drive if you’re gonna cry. It isn’t safe! Have fun, okay, and I’ll buy us burgers when you’re done!”</p><p>“Sure, LP, sure,” Drake rolls his eyes, getting out of the car. “You just want an excuse to go get food.”</p><p>“Ooh, can we get Hamburger Hippo? Can I have a <i>shake</i>?” Gosalyn hops out, taking Drake’s hand so they can walk in together again.</p><p>“Absolutely, Gos-a-roonie! Be good, okay? I’ll see you guys in an hour.”</p><p>This time, Drake is less hesitant. He talks about his parents, about what they did and said. Talks about Launchpad’s family, too, about how it feels to know they pushed LP away but they’re still a loving, bonded group. About how he wants to give Gosalyn the love he was never shown, especially since she’s been hurt so badly, but he fears about doing so much wrong since he never learned to do it right.</p><p>His therapist helps him untangle it, little by little. Helps him feel a little less anxious about dinners with Ripcord and Birdie. Reminds him that not everyone is out to hurt him, even if people have in the past. And, over and over during the session, his therapist reminds him that he’s loved. He might not have had the best upbringing, but he’s not alone anymore, and really that’s what Drake needs. To be reminded that he doesn’t have to be a solitary shadow figure, facing the world alone.</p><p>He cries again this time, thinking about what Launchpad and Gos have that he never did. But he leaves with dry cheeks, head held high. His husband is pulling up in the parking lot, and his daughter is taking to his side, red hair messy as always. He’s gonna be alright.</p>
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